Consider that Meta’s Marketplace is the largest competitor. Immediately after they launched, they quickly capitalized on their Identity Verification natural monopoly on online social networking. This was ‘pivoted’ into “Identity Verification Assurance” for your average Playstore and iPhone users.
Marketplace wasn’t even easier to use than Craigslist, 99% of the arguments for using it were “it’s safer because it’s less scams”.
I wouldn’t put it beneath Zuck and his bootlickers to pay a few bitcoins to maintain an artifically inflated number of scams on Craigslist.
It reinforces the mistaken belief that scams are driven by anonymity (instead of the truth that you can have all their data and the justice department will look the other way… that’s why they keep doing it until they scam Grant Hudson of McLean, VA).
Anyway, the faster CL dies the sooner Meta consolidates a monopoly on electronic flea marketing or whatever it’s called.
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Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
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Craigslist is a pita.
A guy was offloading a box of woodworking magazines. Read: full woodworking plans, multiple per mag. $10. Great.
The contact info is an email. Ridiculous, but ok, I’ll try it.
I use the junk proton mail and the guy responds like he’s on Facebook: yes it’s still available, when would you like to pick it up? Not what I asked, I gave 3 different t days I could be there in the afternoon already and never asked if it was available. He could’ve just said that works or doesn’t. More email. Fantastic.
I repeat what I said and add two more days a week later if he’s keen on waiting. He says tomorrow afternoon would be great, and names a time. But not a place. Great. More email.
I’m not going to futz with email on a tiny phone screen. I ask where while I’m at my PC. I get nothing. Next day rolls around. I try again. Nothing. The time comes and goes. Late evening I check on a lark. I get an oh sorry and he gives the address in an email time stamped hours after agreed upon pickup time.
This is Craigslist. It needs a texting platform to deal with people like this.
I’ve had similar email loops that go nowhere regarding chickens and then an armoire. Woodworking guy was that last. All trapped in email hell.
Craigslist is only under attack from itself. It needs a fast, easy way to text between users or it’s going to remain in the mud. It has the name recognition, and yet.
Conversely, most of my encounters of CL were short and to the point and resolved one way or the other in usually an hour. If the people you’re dealing with are familiar with how it works, it’s two emails, one each way, and maybe a clarification/announcement text.
It’s like, where/when? Maybe another question. Here/time, text number, answer or not.
If it’s more drawn out than that, they’re usually a fucking idiot and it’s not worth pursuing, as they’ll have already sold it to some guy that walked past the sign in the yard by the time they remember how to send an email
Set up Delta Chat to use an unencrypted classic email address (which requires a little set up as they really want you to use an encrypted chatmail server, but once you do set that up) you can use it as a chat app for any emails and your contacts will be none the wiser. There you go, emails are chats now and you can rest easy.
I read this whole thing and I get that you have some kind of negative emotional association with email, but beyond that I cannot for the life of me see how email is the problem here.
Yeah. I would expect email to be the form of communication provided. Or a phone number, but who wants to give those out these days?
Personally, I’d give out a proxy address.
I hate email as well but I don’t blame Craigslist for that, just humanity in general LOL. They have their own chat app now if that’s something you really need.
Fair. I work with people such that email plays a very small role. But I never engage with it on a tiny phone screen, only when I’m sitting down with a PC or work computer.
But you do use some kind of proprietary, surveilled walled garden to communicate on your phone? you ever think of just changing your font size? or just getting rid of your phone?
Get the same shit on Facebook. Worse, even. Get yourself a mobile client.
I haven’t used CL in years but you brought back all the PTSD I had when using that platform.
FB Marketplace isn’t much better but at least you don’t have to deal with the whole slew of different communication platforms.
What’s killer is CL has what’s needed to usurp marketplace, if it would only get serious about integrating a messaging app.